


The Bastard's Mount

by applesofthemoon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Centaur!Theon, Gen, Mutilation, Oral Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:50:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8946529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applesofthemoon/pseuds/applesofthemoon
Summary: Ramsay's new horse won't be easily broken.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the fantastic Thrumbolt, whose [centaur Thramsay](http://thrumugnyr.tumblr.com/post/128191595334/centaur-thramsay-because-why-not) inspired...whatever this is. All I know is that I saw that picture and suddenly all I could think about was [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dnWnXPye4) from _Spirit._ You know, that movie about Matt Damon Horse and his fucking horse eyebrows. NEVER GONNA GIVE IT NEVER GONNA GIVE IT UP NOO
> 
> Also, I didn't think it made a whole hell of a lot of sense for a race of centaurs to be island-dwellers or seafarers, so Theon now hails from the shores and lands slightly north of the Iron Islands rather than the Iron Islands themselves. Not that it has much bearing on what happens to him, but y'know, for backstory's sake.

The stall door rattled when his front hooves slammed against it. He struck out at the wall with his back legs, then wheeled and began all over again, deepening the grooves he’d already worn into the wood. At this rate he would wear out his shoes in a matter of days, but that was all to the good. If he could jar one loose, he would fling it in the next face that appeared at his door.

The Bastard of Bolton thought to make him his mount, a fine swift steed the likes of which no other man had tamed, but he would be disappointed. Theon was not some stripling who would yield to the touch of a whip. He was a prince of the Rills and the Stony Shore, of hill and river and wood, of wide skies and singing winds. His people were freedom made flesh, going where they would and taking what they pleased. No two-legged man would get the better of him.

When Ramsay captured him, he'd had him stripped of his clothes and weapons, fitted with a halter, and tied to a post in the yard, his arms bound at his back. Every day Ramsay and his men would try to break him, try to wrestle a bit into his mouth and themselves onto his back, and every day they were bitten and bucked off and trampled into the dirt. One at a time, two, three, it made no matter. All they got for their trouble were bruises in the shape of his hoofprints.

Then they had untied him and dragged him into the stable. That had been three days ago, near as he could tell. Three days in a box just big enough to turn around in, where light entered only through the crevice between the door and its frame. Three days with nothing to eat or drink.

Theon fell against the wall, chest heaving. He was so tired. If he slept, he might at least dream that his belly was full and his thirst slaked. And when he woke, before he opened his eyes, he might think for a moment that it was meadowgrass tickling his flank, not limp hay that stank of his own piss.

 _No. No!_ That was what Ramsay wanted. He meant to weaken him, to starve him into submission, but a prince did not submit. Theon reared and kicked the stall door so hard the chain that held it jangled. “Why don’t you show your face, bastard?” he hollered above his own racket. “Are you afraid of me?” He gathered his strength and kicked the door again, pretending it was Ramsay’s skull. “You should be!”

Just as he was about to spin and throw his rear hooves at the stall door, he heard something outside it. Footsteps. They paused at his stall, and the chain clattered. When the upper half of the door swung open, torchlight stung Theon’s eyes, making him shrink and squint. There was the slosh of liquid and then, before he could blink his visitor’s face into focus, darkness again. The door was chained and the footsteps left the stable. 

Theon could not see the water, but he could smell it. The trough by the door had been filled. With his arms bound behind him he could not gather the water in his hands, so he knelt and slurped from the trough like a beast, wetting his face and hair in his haste. He did not want to want anything the two-legged men gave him, but he could not help his thirst; he drank until he could hold no more.

Suddenly he was so sleepy his head swam. He tried to stand and shake it off, but the water in his belly had turned to stone, holding him down. _I just need to rest a moment,_ he told himself. _Just a moment, and then…_

Before he could finish the thought, he was out.  
__

He was woken by a stab of pain that lanced from his gums through his jaw. He tried to jerk away from it, but his body refused to move. It felt heavy, like a corpse.

Unlike a corpse, it bled. The taste was sharp on his tongue and he could not cleanse his mouth of it. His lips and tongue ignored his will as stubbornly as the rest of him, and anywise, there was something wedged between his jaws, forcing them apart. 

With no small amount of effort, he lifted his eyelids. He saw a pair of blacksmith’s tongs holding his mouth open, and he saw that it was the dirt floor of the blacksmith’s workshop on which he lay. He felt the hot breath of the forge at his back. And bent over him, pliers in hand, he saw the Bastard of Bolton.

The pliers disappeared into Theon’s mouth, closed around a bottom back tooth, and wrenched it from its socket. The pain that shot through his jaw made his legs tremble with the urge to strike at its source, but tremble was all they did. The gods only knew what poison had been put in his water. He cursed himself for being fool enough to drink it. 

The sockets of his pulled teeth, one on either side of his lower jaw, throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Did Ramsay mean to take the rest? No, it seemed not; he cleaned the pliers with a rag and set them down. “You sure about this, m'lord?” came a voice, presumably the blacksmith’s, from somewhere Theon could not see. “Could break his jaw, it could. Or worse.”

“I’m not worried.” Ramsay caught Theon’s eyes and smiled. “Didn’t you hear him throwing a fit in the stable? This one’s _strong._ ”

Fear clutched at Theon’s insides. He fought against his invisible bonds, wanting to thrash, bellow, kick, but for all the fire inside him he could not so much as lash his tail. He could only lie still, dragging breath through his nostrils, and watch with wide eyes as the blacksmith came round to stand before him. He carried a hammer and a pair of nails – big nails, like the ones that fastened Theon’s shoes to his hooves. But he knew Ramsay had not brought him here to be shod.

The blacksmith positioned a nail in one of the gaps between Theon’s teeth and pulled back his hammer. Theon’s bowels went to jelly. _No,_ he thought wildly, _no, no, no,_ as if it would do him any good. Then the hammer fell, and pain ripped all thought from his mind.  
__

It wasn’t cold in his stall, but Theon couldn’t stop shivering. He lay on his side facing the back wall, as far from the door as he could get. Bits of hay, wet with blood and drool, stuck to his cheek.

He would doze off every so often, ten minutes here, twenty minutes there, and wake startled and confused by the metallic weight on his tongue, the daggers buried in his jaw. Then he would remember, and start to shiver again.

Someone, not Ramsay, had come once to rinse Theon’s mouth with hot wine. That was the last and only time the stall door had opened, and he did not know how long ago it had been. He did not turn to look for sunlight peering in beneath the door. He did not hope to be fed or watered. He did not seek to ease the pain.

Then one day or perhaps one night, he heard the clink of the chain, the creak of the door. Fear made his belly cramp and swept his tail between his back legs. He curled close to the wall and held himself perfectly still as footsteps crunched across the hay. 

A gloved hand cupped his jaw and pulled his head toward an orange light that burned through his screwed-shut eyelids. “Let’s see.” Fingers nudged his mouth open and hovered over the nails driven through his gums and into his jawbone, the steel bit soldered to a nail at either end. When one finger actually touched a nail, a whimper squeezed its way from Theon’s throat. “Good. That’s good.”

The hand withdrew and a boot prodded his back. “Get up.” Theon struggled to process the command. He was only just beginning to locate his legs in the space around him when warm breath fluttered his hair. “ _Now,_ ” came a whisper in his ear, “or I’ll skin you from thighs to withers and make myself a cape of your hide.”

Theon forced his hooves to grip the ground and his legs to hoist his weight. The stall door stood open, admitting a weak breeze. Ramsay gave his hindquarters a slap and strode out ahead of him. “Come along,” he said. “We’re going for a ride.”

In the yard, Theon was saddled and bridled, and he allowed Ramsay to mount him without complaint. He was heavier than he looked, and he didn’t look light. Theon wondered how horses did this day in and day out. There were several of them in the yard, their riders drinking from wineskins and japing with one another. Closer to the ground paced six or seven large hounds. Hunting hounds, Theon realized. Did Ramsay mean to take him hunting?

His question was answered when the main gate rose and one of the riders sounded a horn. Its peal pierced the air, long and loud and clear. “If you do well today, when we return you’ll have a bucket of water and something soft to eat,” Ramsay told him. “If you disappoint me…” He chuckled and dug his spurs into Theon’s sides.

They set out at dawn and rode through the wood all morning, following the hounds. Theon was unused to the weight on his back, and that, coupled with his empty belly, made him tire quickly, but he pushed himself to keep up a brisk canter. Anything less invited a jab from Ramsay’s spurs, which were as sharp as one might expect and gouged Theon’s sides with every kick.

Worse than that was when they slowed or turned. The gentlest tug of the reins set Theon’s jaw afire, and Ramsay’s tugging was far from gentle. The first time, the pain hit him so hard that he stumbled, nearly going to his knees in the underbrush. Ramsay hawked in disgust and laid his whip across Theon’s back. After that Theon did his best to anticipate their course, so Ramsay wouldn’t have to pull the reins, but he did anyway. 

_Just_ say _what you want, I’ll do it, I will,_ Theon thought of begging, but his mouth hurt too badly to attempt speech. It was likely for the best. Ramsay might well have taken it for a demand and driven Theon in circles just to torture him.

By midday he was exhausted, his back slick with sweat and his sides white with lather, and he saw the wood through a fog of pain. He was beginning to despair of ever seeing the hunt’s end when the hounds suddenly bounded ahead, barking with excitement. Ramsay spurred Theon into a gallop. They crashed through the trees into a clearing, where a weeping girl in a dirty dress crouched in the center of a ring of snarling hounds. 

So this was their quarry. Theon had not known, but he was not surprised. _We are all beasts to him,_ he thought as Ramsay reined up and dismounted, _four legs or two._

The rest of the hunting party spilled into the clearing a moment later. One of the men swung down from his horse and took Theon’s reins while Ramsay amused himself with the girl. He was speaking to her, no doubt taunting her, but Theon was not listening. He looked to the surrounding wood, thick and dark and tangled like the hair of some enormous wild woman. Somewhere beyond it were his people. Somewhere beyond it was his _life._

The man at his side was holding his reins but lightly, his eyes on Ramsay and the girl. Everyone’s eyes were on Ramsay and the girl. Perhaps Ramsay’s men hoped they would have a turn when he was through with her, or perhaps they were just enjoying the show. Most of them had slid off of their horses. How long would it take them to climb back on? How long would it take Ramsay to lace up his breeches?

Everything seemed to move slowly, as if through water instead of air. _Now,_ Theon thought. _Go now, or die a beast._

He jerked away from the man holding his reins and charged for the wood. He felt nothing but his hooves hammering the ground, heard nothing but the furious thudding of his heart, saw nothing but the trees drawing closer and closer, ready to swallow him whole.

Until Ramsay’s voice flew across the clearing, swift and sharp as an arrow. “They won’t have you back, you know,” he yelled, “not now, not ever. When I catch you you’ll beg me to bring you home!”

It didn’t stop him. It only slowed him, just a little, just for an instant. But an instant was all it took. Hot on the heels of Ramsay’s shout came a real arrow, hissing through the air and taking Theon in the shoulder. That didn’t stop him either, but it startled him, threw him off balance. He tripped on a root and fell hard, hitting the ground chin-first.

If he had been lucky, he would have blacked out from the pain. He wasn’t lucky. He felt all of it: the nails jarring against his upper back teeth; the tears pricking his eyes; the warm blood filling his mouth. He heard himself mewling like a newborn babe. 

Ramsay was right, he knew. There was no life for him beyond the wood. He would shatter his jaw trying to get rid of the bit, and so long as he wore it he could never return to his people. One look at him and they would know him for what he was. Not their prince. Not even one of their own. Just Ramsay’s mount.

When Ramsay was spent and the girl was dead, his men bound Theon’s front and back legs, tied him to a pair of horses, and set out for the Dreadfort dragging him behind them. _Home,_ Theon thought blearily, remembering what Ramsay had said to him as he ran. _We’re going home._

Ramsay rode up beside them on the horse he had commandeered for the return trip. “I feared a stallion would prove hard to break,” he said lightly to his men. “Perhaps I’ll do better with a gelding.”


End file.
